Aftermath
by cinnamonjay
Summary: What happens after the unthinkable happens? Oliver and Felicity deal with the consequences of their plan to stop Slade and his army. (My story of what happens during the hiatus between Season 2 and 3. Olicity!)
1. Chapter 1

-1-

Oliver made his way into the Sanctuary, pulling back his hood. It had been a quiet night again, which didn't surprise him. Ever since they had stopped Slade and his Mirakuru army from practically destroying Starling City, it seemed people were taking a moment to catch a breath, take stock of where they were. Good guys _and_ bad guys. He supposed he should be grateful for the temporary reprieve from his nighttime vigilantism. He knew it wouldn't last.  
The lights were on inside and it took him only a split second to realise why. He spotted her bright blonde hair almost immediately: Felicity. She was at her desk, stooped over, her head resting on her folded arms. He approached her silently, wondering what she was doing here. He had already told her and Diggle to go home, and that had been an hour ago.  
He slowed down when he got nearer and saw that she was asleep. Her glasses were in her hand and her hair was out of its habitual ponytail, sweeping down across her cheek. He noticed there were dark circles under her eyes, and felt his stomach clutch with concern. She looked tired.  
"Felicity," he said quietly, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder gently. When she didn't stir, he said her name again and lightly stroked her hair off her cheek.  
Her eyes opened and she blinked a few times, looking up at him. For a moment she looked confused; then she abruptly sat up in her chair, pulling her glasses back on.  
"Oliver," she said, clearing her throat. "What are you doing here?"  
"No," he said slowly, "what are _you _doing here?"  
"Right," she said, nervously shuffling in her chair. "Yes, what am I doing here? I should have gone home ages ago, but I…uh…I fell asleep. I guess I won't make employee of the month this time." She smiled at her attempt at a light joke, but her eyes were wide behind her glasses. She swallowed nervously.  
"I think I'll just go," she said slowly. She reached down, grabbed her bag, then stood up, avoiding his gaze. Oliver didn't move. He didn't pretend to read people very easily, but after everything they had been through together, he was starting to read Felicity pretty well. There was something wrong with her, something that was making her nervous around him. She was babbling, and she hadn't babbled around him in a long time.  
He watched her fishing around her bag looking for her keys, and was overwhelmed with the compulsion to gather her into his arms to soothe her. Instead, he reached out and took her hand, holding it still.  
"Felicity," he said, making her look up. "Tell me what's wrong."  
"It's noth-" she started to say, but he interrupted her.  
"Don't tell me it's nothing."  
She looked at him, uncertain, and he squeezed her hand, noticing, despite himself, how nicely it fit inside his.  
"Please," he said.  
She gave him a tight smile, and for a moment he thought she was going to brush him off. He felt a momentary pang of panic at the thought that she was going to shut him out. She never shut him out, never thought twice about telling him exactly what was on her mind, even if it was in her best interest not to do so. It was something that he relied on from her – complete honesty.  
The smile on her face wavered, then disappeared, to be replaced with a tired expression that he had never seen before.  
"I can't sleep at home," she said quietly. "I've been having nightmares ever since Slade…" her voice trailed off and she looked up at him with her big blue eyes, looking suddenly scared and vulnerable. A wave of guilt washed over Oliver as he remembered what he had put her through, what he had made her face all alone. Kidnapped by Slade just so she could get close enough to him to take him down…  
His face darkened at the memory of Slade's sword at Felicity's neck. So many things could have gone wrong that night. He wasn't surprised she was having nightmares – he was having them too.  
"This is the only place where I feel safe," she continued when he didn't say anything. "So I thought I could stay…"  
He frowned and squeezed her hand again. "Of course," he said. "You don't even have to explain, this is your place too." He gave her a small smile, one that he hoped was reassuring, then let go of her hand. "You should take the cot," he said, gesturing towards the back of the room. Her eyebrows rose in surprise.  
"I'm not sleeping in your cot," she said.  
"It's probably more comfortable than your desk." He smiled slightly at her dubious look. "Probably."  
"Yeah, but it's _your_ cot," she said. "You need a good night sleep a lot more than I do, Oliver." She sat back down in her chair. "You know, you should think about getting a better bed to sleep in, you spend more time here than you do at the mansion. Or you know, just get a blanket even."

The lights flickered on as Felicity made her way into the Sanctuary, stumbling a little down the stairs. Sometimes she missed the Foundry, with all its space and easier-to-get-to location, but it had been demolished last month by Slade's army. Besides, too many people knew its location now – one of those people being Slade himself. A shiver of fear went down her spine and she halted, closing her eyes. Slade wasn't around anymore, he was locked up far, far away…  
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she made her way down the last few steps. It was only just past one in the afternoon and she was tired. She had snuck out of work early, for once the mindless whirring of a computer screen doing little to shut out her thoughts. She needed some rest and had automatically driven here. The fact that this place, with its high-tech computers, various weapons and DIY surgery, was a place that she automatically came to for _rest _was one of the many things in her life that made little to no sense.  
The Sanctuary was empty and she felt a little relieved. Diggle was at his place spending time with Lyla, and Oliver was in a lunch meeting with a potential new partner. Perhaps she could catch a few quick minutes of sleep while she was alone. As she put her bag down at her desk, something caught her eye – something different at the back of the building that hadn't been there the day before. She made her way over, wondering if Oliver had ordered something new in. Where on earth had he found the money?  
When she got to the back of the room, what she saw made her mouth drop open in shock.  
It was a cot. Another cot. Right next to Oliver's one. Felicity stared at it and stared at it, and then kept on staring at it as if it would disappear if she only waited long enough. What in the world was Oliver playing at?  
_You should take the cot.  
__I'm not sleeping in your cot.  
_What, she had refused to sleep in his bed, and so he had bought her her own one? And placed it right next to his? She rubbed her forehead wearily and sighed. Oliver could be sweet, in his own way. Too bad he was completely clueless.  
She walked over to the cot and considered moving it somewhere else in the Sanctuary. But she decided against it almost immediately, since she knew that he would read waaaaaay too much into it. If he was fine with sleeping next to her, then she was absolutely fine with sleeping next to him. Because they were just friends and partners. They had been through a lot together, and a lot of that stuff was a whole lot worse than sleeping in separate beds side by side.  
She sighed heavily and settled herself into the cot, pulling the rough grey blanket over herself. She was too tired to worry about things, and really, in the grand scheme of things, worrying about sleeping in a bed next to Oliver was not very high in the things-to-freak-out-about list.


	2. Chapter 2

-2-

Laurel blinked her eyes a few times as Diggle pulled the blindfold off her head. She pursed her lips, biting back the stream of expletives that she had been formulating in her head. She glared up at him, but he merely gave her a deadpan look as he led her down a flight of stairs.  
"I don't know why you don't want me to know where this place is," she said, following him down.  
"The less people who know where our new place is, the better," he said.  
"But I already know that Ollie is the Arrow."  
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to know how to lead others to him."  
"I would never give away his secret," she said indignantly. Diggle gave her his deadpan look again, which annoyed her to no end. She wondered what he had against her, but decided that it was probably better not to ask.  
"So I guess this place is just for you and Ollie and Felicity, right?" she said.  
"As Oliver said, this started with the three of us."  
Laurel sighed as she got to the bottom of the stairs. It still bothered her, that Oliver had kept the secret of being the vigilante from her for so long. Would it have made a difference to how they had reunited if she had known? If she was being honest with herself, it probably wouldn't have. But still, it _bothered_ her that he had come back to Starling City and he had not asked for her help, let her think awful things about him, let her say awful things _to_ him. What was it about John Diggle and Felicity Smoak that he trusted them to work with him? She wanted to believe that he kept her out of the loop to protect her. But she knew his secret now…and still he hadn't asked her to be part of the team.  
"He's out the back," Diggle told her, gesturing towards the back of the room before moving away. She smiled her thanks but he had already turned his back to her. Her smile turned into a grimace as she watched his retreating figure. Letting out another sigh, she made her way to the back of the room, heading for where he had pointed.  
"Ollie?" she called out. Behind a shelf she saw something move and a few steps around it led her to where he was. He looked up when she appeared and she gave him a wide smile as she opened her mouth to greet him. But he put his finger to his lips, hushing her.  
The smile on Laurel's face froze into place when her brain finally processed what she was looking at. Oliver was sitting on a cot, a few files open in front of him, files that she was here to talk to him about. On a separate cot next to him was Felicity, sound asleep.  
Silently and smoothly, Oliver got up from the cot, gathered the files in his hands and made his way over to her; not before, she noticed, he briefly leaned over to check on Felicity.  
"Hey," he whispered, coming to stand next to her, "what's up?"  
"I…" she began to say, forgetting what it was she had come over for. She had spent the better half of the morning convincing John Diggle to take her to Ollie, and now she couldn't even remember what it was she wanted to see him about.  
"Let's talk out here," he said, gesturing out towards the main room. "I don't want to wake Felicity."  
Laurel followed him dumbly, her heels clicking loudly on the floor. When he put down the files he was carrying and perched himself on a table, looking at her expectantly, she opened her mouth and said the first thing that popped into her head.  
"So Felicity sleeps here too?"  
Ollie's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Not all the time," he said slowly.  
"Oh," she said. She paused. Then – "this is a recent development?"  
He exhaled loudly and crossed his arms. "She's been having nightmares. The whole Slade thing…"  
"I see," she said. Of course – when Slade had kidnapped Felicity and threatened to kill her in front of Oliver. That had been a moment of big reveals for Laurel, the biggest of which was the realisation that Oliver and Felicity were well and truly partners, perhaps in more than just the crime-fighting-duo sense.  
"Diggle told me that you wanted to talk to me about something urgently?" he said, breaking through her thoughts.  
"Oh?" she said. "Yeah, I did. I-" She was cut off when her phone began to buzz, and she almost sighed with relief. Pulling it out of her pocket, she saw that it was a text from the office. It wasn't important, but it served her purpose for the moment.  
"Sorry, I really need to get back to the office," she said. She gave him a smile she didn't feel. "There's a case I'm working on and the jury's come back earlier than I thought. Do you think Diggle could drive me back?"  
"Of course," he said, giving her a steely look which she chose to ignore. "Is everything ok?"  
"Yeah, of course," she said. "We can talk later." She gestured towards the files next to him. "I'll call you later about those. I'm sorry Ollie, I really need to get back to the office."  
"Sure," he said. He stood up and walked over to her, giving her a tight smile. "We'll talk later."  
Laurel nodded her head. "Of course," she said again. She waited as he went to find Diggle to drive her back to the office, pulling her phone out of her pocket to pretend that she was busy sending an email when in truth her mind was whirring with a million questions that she couldn't ask. A few minutes later, as she followed Diggle up the stairs, she glanced back and saw Oliver returning to the back of the room.

Oliver found Felicity awake and sitting up on her cot.  
"Did I wake you?" he asked.  
"I heard Laurel's voice," she said. "She didn't stay long."  
"She got a call from the office and had to leave."  
"Really?" she said, tilting her head to the side in the way she did when she didn't believe what he was telling her.  
"That's what she said."  
Felicity sighed and brought her legs up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. He realised that she was wearing loose track pants and a white t-shirt – not her usual quirky dresses or bright blouses. He frowned, a trickle of worry washing over him. Felicity always kept herself very well put-together, he suspected to compensate for her occasionally nervous personality traits. The fact that she wasn't even trying suggested an unusual apathy that unsettled him.  
"You know why she left so quickly, don't you?" she said, staring at him directly with her bright blue eyes.  
He looked at her silently, not sure where the conversation was heading, but pretty sure that he wasn't going to like it.  
"She was startled to find me sleeping here," she said. "You know, sleeping here in a cot next to your cot in a small space."  
"I don't see how that's any of Laurel's concern," he said, choosing his words carefully.  
She gave him another long look before she let out a sigh and stood up. "I'll start staying over at Dig's. He said I could."  
"Why would you do that?"  
"Because if Laurel is going to be coming to the Sanctuary now, I can't be sleeping here." She went to walk past him but he caught her by the elbow and stopped her.  
"Felicity," he started to say but she cut him off.  
"Oliver," she said, her voice suddenly stern. He blinked. She was using her loud voice, which for some reason he had yet to figure out, made him always shut up and listen.  
"This is _Laurel _we're talking about," she said. "Don't you think it will be a little awkward for you to get back together with her if I'm sleeping here next to you?"  
"Who says I want to get back with Laurel?" he asked.  
"I don't know, maybe the _universe_?" she said, looking at him like she thought he was stupid. "You've been all about her ever since you got back from the island. She's like your…you know, she's…_Laurel_." She pursed her lips, looking like she was about to start telling him off. He stared at her, completely confused as to how he had gotten into this conversation, and wanting very much to get out of it as soon as possible. But then Felicity's expression softened and she reached out to touch him gently on the arm.  
"Oliver, I really…I want you to be happy," she said softly. "You deserve it. After everything you've been through and after everything you've done for this city…I really think Laurel could make you happy. She kept you alive while you were on the island, and you did everything you could to get back to her. I think it's time you got back to her." She gave him a small smile before looking away. "I'll get on to checking those names on the files for you."  
She walked away from him back to her computers, leaving him alone, her words echoing inside him.


	3. Chapter 3

-3-

_Felicity is with me and Lyla tonight. Don't worry, we'll look after her.  
_Oliver put his phone down on the table and made his way to the back of the room, pulling off his hood and depositing his quiver along the way. Another quiet night in Starling City. He had sent Diggle and Felicity home early again, and although the silence and emptiness of the Sanctuary usually didn't bother him, tonight it did. He sat down in a chair, looking at Diggle's text again. An unmistakeable feeling of loneliness was settling in his stomach, one he tried to ignore but couldn't. With his mother dead and Thea gone, he was starting to notice that, for all intents and purposes, Diggle and Felicity were his family now. Everything that he had known in his life, everything that had made him Oliver Queen before the island, was gone. He'd lost QC, he'd lost his family, the mansion was an empty shell. Even the friends he had known before – Tommy and Sara, they weren't around anymore. And Laurel? He knew she wanted him to start trusting her, let her in, become the main woman in his life again. But he was hesitating because…  
Well, because he already had a woman. Well, a girl. Not a _girl _girl, because apparently, there was a difference. He had Felicity, and apart from Diggle, she was the person he trusted most in the world. When he had come back from Lian Yu, he had expected to clean up Starling City all by himself. He had been alone for so long that he had thought that he would be alone for the rest of his life.  
But then he had met Felicity. From the beginning she had just seemed to see right through him: she saw through his lies, all his excuses, all his fake smiles and winning charm that no one – not his family, not Tommy or even Laurel – had seen through. She hadn't seen the Oliver Queen that his family and past friends were so desperate to get back; she had only seen the Oliver Queen who had returned. And she had decided that he was – not broken, not misguided, not a liar or a cheat or a murderer – but _good_. Good enough to help, good enough to trust, good enough to take that leap of faith on.  
Maybe it had been that difference in the way she looked at him that had made him connect with her. Maybe it had been the open acceptance he saw in her eyes (so different from his mother's poker face, Thea's confusion, Tommy's disapproval and Laurel's hurt) that had crumbled his walls a little. He didn't really know; all he knew was that now he had a person by his side who kept him on the straight and narrow, told him when he was wrong, congratulated him when he was right and risked everything she had to fight alongside him. All of a sudden, he was no longer alone.  
And because of that, he was starting to notice those times whenever he _was_ alone – how silent it was without Felicity's babbling, how empty a place could be without Diggle's steadying presence.  
He let out a huge sigh and made his way over to his cot, taking off his costume as he went. The sight of Felicity's empty cot next to his one only served to underline the feeling of loneliness deep in the pit of his stomach. He didn't know what he had been thinking when he had brought it in for her – but after a couple of weeks with her sleeping there, he didn't care anymore. There was something so settling about having her there with him. During those moments when Diggle was in the main room working out, and he was sitting on his cot looking through a file or sharpening his arrows, and Felicity was sleeping quietly next to him, he felt something that he imagined was close to peace.  
He looked at Felicity's empty cot again, his chest tightening. Having peace was something that he had never thought was going to be possible to have again after what he had gone through. But from the moment when he had met Felicity, something inside him had sparked back to life, so slowly that he hadn't even noticed it was growing until one day it was just _there. _A light.  
Last night, Felicity had been right. It _was_ Laurel who had kept him alive on the island. That photograph of her had been the only thing that had connected him to his old life, the only reminder that somewhere out there, outside of the hell that he was living through, there was a world that he had once belonged to.  
But what Felicity didn't know was that what kept him alive _now_ was…her. Felicity was his light, the light he could see when everything else around him was still so dark.  
He looked down at his cot, his chest heavy. Then with a weary sigh, he lay himself down on the cot where only last night, Felicity had slept.  
He closed his eyes and let her scent on her pillow carry him away into the darkness.

Felicity sipped her coffee as she sat on the park bench, watching people passing by on their morning jogs or walking their dogs. She wondered whether she should get a dog – maybe that would stop her feeling so alone in her apartment. As much as she had loved staying over at Diggle and Lyla's for the night, she didn't know if she could take more than one night of Diggle being so over-protective. She supposed it was his father-to-be instincts working overtime. She knew she couldn't blame him but still, she didn't want to turn into Lyla, who looked ready to kill him whenever he told her off for doing something besides sitting down.  
As she took another sip of her coffee, she heard someone calling her name. She turned her head and saw Laurel walking towards her. It was the weekend so she was out of her habitual business suit, instead sporting a pair of jeans and a loose cardigan. She was smiling as she approached.  
"Hi Laurel," Felicity said, returning her smile.  
"Mind if I join you?" Laurel asked.  
"No, of course," Felicity said, shuffling over a little. Laurel sat down next to her and the two of them fell into an awkward silence. Felicity could feel her thoughts scrambling in her head, trying to think of something to say, but she kept her mouth shut tight. She did not want to start rambling on and on – it was way too early in the morning for that sort of embarrassment.  
"How are you?" Laurel said, finally breaking the silence.  
"I'm ok. How are you?"  
"I'm fine," Laurel said, nodding her head slightly. "Ollie told me that you haven't been sleeping well."  
"Oh he did?" she said. She didn't know how she felt about Oliver and Laurel talking about her. "Well, I've been having nightmares. About Slade, you know. Actually, you _do _know, don't you? You should know all about that, you were there too. I mean, Slade kidnapped you too."  
"Yeah," Laurel said, giving her a wry smile.  
"It's an odd thing to have in common, isn't it?"  
"Yeah, it is. But come on, we have more things in common, don't we? Like, we both work with a vigilante."  
Felicity smiled. "And we're both super smart."  
"And great dressers."  
"And we both fight crime."  
"And we're both friends with Ollie."  
Felicity gave her a little smile and nodded her head. "Oliver. We have Oliver in common."  
"Oliver," Laurel echoed, looking at Felicity thoughtfully.  
Felicity looked back at Laurel, thinking that she really was lovely. If only she and Oliver could get past all their history, start being honest with each other, she really thought they had a chance.  
"You know I've been thinking about that time with Slade lately," Laurel said. "And I'm sorry to bring it up."  
"No it's ok," Felicity said. "Maybe it would help to talk about it."  
"What you did was really brave, you know."  
Felicity shrugged. "I guess nothing short of an apocalypse will get me over my fear of needles and psychos."  
That made Laurel smile. "I can see why Ollie loves you."  
Felicity was taken aback. "What? No, he doesn't…what?"  
"Ok," Laurel said with a laugh, nudging her with her shoulder. "Have it your way."  
"We're _partners_," Felicity told her.  
Laurel gave her a knowing smile, which made Felicity a little uncomfortable. She hoped Laurel wasn't being serious. Of course she had been there when Oliver had told Slade that he loved her, but surely she would have figured out by now that it was all a ruse? She didn't want Laurel thinking that there was more to it than that – like the situation wasn't mortifying enough!  
After a long pause, Laurel spoke again. "Can I tell you something?"  
Felicity nodded her head.  
"Before he disappeared, Ollie didn't really care about anything or anyone. He was…well, I'm sure you've heard the stories. He only cared about himself, he did things his own way. I don't think that changed when he came back – I suspect that he was even going to do the whole Arrow thing all by himself."  
Felicity nodded her head. She remembered Oliver saying exactly that once to her: _at the beginning I was just going to do all this all by myself.  
_"When he came back, I thought he hadn't changed at all," Laurel continued. "He did anything he could to keep his secret of being the Arrow, at the cost of everything that should have been important to him. He fought with Thea, he fought with his mother, he fought with Sara. He fought with me, and Tommy…" her voice trailed away.  
"He tried his best," Felicity said quietly.  
Laurel shook her head and smiled sadly. "No he didn't. He didn't try his best, not with me or Tommy or with his family. His secret was more important to him. If he had tried his best, he would have told us what he was doing. He would have trusted us, tried his best to get us to believe in what he was trying to do. The only people he tried his best with were John. And you. He did tried his best with you."  
"I think…" Felicity swallowed, trying to find the right words to say. She didn't want Laurel to think that Oliver didn't care about her. It was completely the opposite – he cared about her so much that he tried to protect her all the time.  
"I think that you and I both know how much Oliver's changed," Felicity said. "It was hard for him to be with you guys because I think for him it was a constant reminder of the guy he used to be – you know, before all the hellfire and death and…scars. I think so much of him wants to hide what he had to endure, especially from the people he loves. He doesn't want to hurt them. He didn't want to hurt you."  
"Maybe," Laurel said, looking unconvinced. "Or maybe it wasn't about him hiding. Maybe it was about us not seeing." She turned to look at her. "How did you find out?"  
Felicity smiled wryly. "He wanted me to hack into a computer for him. I think I unofficially knew then. Officially though, Moira shot him – the Arrow, I mean – and I found him bleeding in the backseat of my car."  
Laurel smiled and nodded her head as if Felicity had confirmed something for her. "Moira got attacked by the vigilante not long after Ollie came back. You found out pretty early on."  
"Oh-kay…"  
Laurel reached out and touched her on the arm. "No, I'm not competing or comparing, don't get me wrong."  
"Good," Felicity said. "Because there isn't really any competition. He loves you, Laurel. That's why he kept his secret from you."  
Laurel smiled. "You're sweet," she said, reminding Felicity of Sara. She checked her watch and stood up. "I need to go, but I'm glad I ran into you."  
"Me too," Felicity said. "I guess we'll be seeing more of each other, so it's nice to have a chance to talk to you. With Sara gone, I'm looking forward to having another woman around. Maybe I can finally convince Oliver that we should get a couch in the Sanctuary. He laughed when I said it would be nice for guests."  
"He laughed?"  
"Well, you know. Smirked. Which he'll never do again, considering I sent him an email bomb of couch spam to his email account. Which _I'll _never do again because all he did was buy a new phone which I had to recalibrate to our computers which is _not _easy, and then he just smirked at me all week. Which I'm sorry to say I didn't mind _that_ much, cos at least he was smirking and not, you know. _Brooding_."  
Laurel stared thoughtfully at Felicity for a long time before giving her a wide grin. "You know Felicity, when Oliver came back to Starling City, we all wanted him to be something. Thea wanted him to be her brother again, Moira wanted him to be her son. Tommy wanted him to be his best friend and I wanted him to be Ollie again so I could hate him for what he did to me. You know what you want him to be?"  
"Someone who'll buy me a couch?"  
"Happy."


	4. Chapter 4

-4-

Oliver saw Felicity from across the street and set off at a jog to catch up with her. He pulled the hood of his jersey down lower over his face – he didn't want anyone recognising him while he was anywhere near where Felicity lived. He could just picture her glowering face when she read the headline: OLIVER QUEEN CAUGHT SNEAKING INTO PERSONAL ASSISTANT'S HOUSE. That was an argument he did not want to get into now or ever.  
As she turned the corner into her street, she glanced back momentarily and he saw her peering at him warily as he hurried to catch up; but to his surprise, she didn't stop to wait for him. He frowned, wondering why she wasn't waiting. Increasing his pace to catch up to her, when he turned the corner he found that she was nowhere in sight. What did she do, sprint to her front door?  
His frown deepened – maybe she _hadn't _seen him approaching; but he was pretty sure she had looked straight at him before she turned into her street. He made his way towards her house, the mystery of why Felicity might be avoiding him distracting him just enough so that the sight of the mace spray bottle in his face momentarily surprised him.  
Only momentarily, though. Without another thought, he grabbed whoever's wrist it was that was about to loose a spray of mace into his face and lifted it high into the air. With his free forearm, he pushed the person back against the brick fence with a hard thud, causing the person to cry out.  
The familiar perfume was the first thing that his mind registered, a split second before other important details came crashing into his consciousness in one horrible instant: the bright blonde hair, the big blue eyes, the glasses, the lipstick.  
"Felicity," he said, immediately loosening his grip.  
"Oliver," she breathed as he let go of her. He felt terrible for hurting her but he noticed that she didn't look angry at him; more relieved than anything else.  
"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice filled with concern. In answer, she simply reached out and hugged him. For a moment all he could do was hold her, the unusual intimate gesture taking him aback. But once he had gotten over the initial shock of it, he tightened his arms around her. Breathing in her scent, he noted how nicely she fitted in the circle of his arms, how trustingly she relaxed into his embrace. Felicity hugged in exactly the same way she approached everything else in life: honestly, openly and sincerely. That overwhelming sense of peace rushed over Oliver again, and he closed his eyes and tucked her head under his chin, pulling her closer. Only then did he notice that she was shaking slightly. Rather reluctantly, he pulled back and studied her face, noticing a tinge of fear in her eyes. Immediately he opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, then thought against it. She would probably say "nothing", like she always did.  
"What were you thinking trying to mace me?" he asked, going for a different approach. He reached for her wrist to check that he hadn't bruised her, then took the mace spray from her still-clenched fist.  
"I didn't know it was you," she said.  
"Who else would it have been?"  
"I don't know! I saw a big guy wearing a dark hoodie eyeing me in the street and I panicked."  
A wave of guilt hit him – he couldn't help but feel responsible for making her so jumpy. Diggle's words came back to him then: _Oliver, I know you don't want to hurt this girl…but we're asking her to get involved in some pretty dangerous stuff. _He had told Diggle that he would protect her, but the way Felicity had just hugged him made him wonder whether he was doing a good enough job.  
He thought again to try to ask her what was wrong, but she was smiling brightly at him, the fear that he had seen earlier in her eyes gone.  
"It sometimes sucks being so popular with the homicidal maniacs," she said jokingly, stepping sideways away from him. "Never know which one of them you're going to meet on the street. By the way, you can now tell Diggle that it is officially a waste of time teaching me how to protect myself. I didn't even slow you down! Though in my defence, you're a lot bigger than most people. Not that I've noticed. I'm stating it as a mere fact."  
He stared at her, wondering what he could possibly say to that. Luckily for him, she never seemed to expect him to answer anyway.  
"So you can tell Diggle to stop bugging me to work out," she continued. "If someone is going to attack me, I don't think spraying them with mace and stabbing them with my keys is going to make much of a difference. Considering I can never find my keys anyway so my attacker is already one up on me."  
Oliver sighed heavily. Well, he had missed his chance to confront her, judging by the runaway ramble she was now on. She was trying to be perky and happy for him, and although it could be inconvenient sometimes – especially when he was trying to figure out what was bothering her – he didn't have the heart to tell her to stop. He looked down at the ground and saw that she had dropped some things. Bending over to pick them up, she stepped forward and stopped him.  
"I'll get that, it's just some stuff from the office. I swung by earlier to pick it up," she said, stooping over quickly. He noticed that an envelope on top was already opened and that she shuffled it to the bottom of the pile.  
"So, what are you doing here? Is there some sort of emergency?" she asked.  
"Do I need to have an emergency to see you?"  
"Well, I guess 'no' would be the right answer to that one, but I can't think of another reason why you'd be here at my house. I hope you haven't come here for dinner, because I think I only have toast to offer you."  
He smiled. "Toast will be fine."  
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Oh." Her expression turned tentative. "Ok then. Come on, I guess."  
He followed her to her front door and watched her fumbling through her bag to find her keys.  
"Do you want me to hold those for you?" he asked, reaching for the bunch of papers in her hand.  
"No, I've got them!" she said, pulling her keys out of her bag. He noticed that her hand had tightened around the papers and she was looking away from him rather nervously. He frowned. Something was definitely up.  
When she finally got the front door open he followed her inside. As they made their way into the living room, he realised that he had known Felicity for two years and he had never actually been inside her house; so it was with more than a mild curiosity that he looked around the room. The thing that struck him first was how cheerful it all looked. There were bright cushions on the couches, a few potted plants on the windowsills and bright pictures on the wall. Interestingly he could only see one laptop on the coffee table – he had expected to see a few computers lying around here and there – but he suspected that she did most of her computer stuff at the Sanctuary. After all, he didn't exactly leave his bow and arrow lying around his bedroom.  
"Come through," she said, leading him to a kitchen mutely lit by the evening light and depositing her bag and the papers on the counter. He sat down at the breakfast bar and watched her moving around, opening cupboards haphazardly and pulling out mugs and coffee and bread.  
"I was serious about only offering toast," she said. "Moonlighting as your IT expert isn't exactly conducive to regular trips to the supermarket."  
"It's fine, Felicity," he said. The corners of his lips twitched as he watched her making his toast, occasionally hearing her muttering under her breath about "shopping online" and "a grocery budget". He knew she was a little flustered with having him in her house, and it made him smile that he could still surprise her a little. He thought about saying something reassuring to her, then decided against it. He liked listening to her voice.  
"I do have coffee, you will be pleased to know," she said. "And I have...oh look that's good, I have a half eaten bag of Oreos. What do you want on your toast?"  
"What?" he asked. Some photos on her fridge had momentarily distracted him. There was one of her with an older blonde lady whom he thought could be her mother. Next to it was a picture of two women about her age, smiling brightly at the camera. Below it, to his surprise, was a photo of her, him and Diggle at Verdant, taken unawares. He and Diggle were smiling wryly at Felicity because she had just murmured something about her glasses fogging up "with all the sweat of a hundred people enjoying themselves while we're waiting for a drug exchange to happen like the cool, fun loving people we are". He remembered that photo – Sara had taken it on a whim and given him a copy, which he secretly kept in the wooden chest he had brought back with him from the island.  
_To remember that it isn't all masks and bad guys, Ollie_, she had said when she had given it to him.  
"Do you want jam or jam?" Felicity asked him, holding up two identical jars with a smile. "What are you looking at?"  
"I didn't know you had that," he said, pointing at their photo.  
"Oh," she said, her cheeks flushing a little. "Yeah, you wouldn't believe how much trouble I got into with my friends when they saw that photo. You know, cos you're my boss and everything. But I didn't have the heart to take it down."  
"Those friends?" he asked, gesturing to the other photo.  
She looked towards the fridge again and nodded her head. "That's Michaela and Jane. I met them at MIT. They came to visit a few months ago before things went all...Slade-y." She put a plate of toast and a mug of steaming black coffee in front of him. "And that's my mother," she said, pointing at the other photo as she made herself a coffee.  
"You look alike."  
She smiled. "The only thing we have in common." She gazed rather wistfully at the photo, then shook her head. "So…" she said, pointedly looking down at his toast. Dutifully he took a bite.  
"What brings you to my house?" she asked, taking a sip of her coffee.  
"I…" he struggled to answer her question. What _was _he doing there? He had spent the better part of the day wandering aimlessly around Starling City and for some reason, he had ended up on Felicity's block.  
"I just wanted to know if you slept all right at Diggle's," he finally said.  
She raised an eyebrow at him. "It was fine," she told him. "Lyla's really nice. She's so super…you know, super _agent_, but she's totally nesting."  
"Nesting?"  
"Buying baby clothes and tiny little baby shoes and putting together a cot." She abruptly stopped talking and her cheeks flushed again. Oliver wondered why, then realised where her thoughts must have gone at the word 'cot'. To his own horror, he felt his own face start to burn as he remembered where he had fallen asleep the night before.  
She cleared her throat awkwardly, then brightened. "Hey, I ran into Laurel this morning in the park."  
"Really?"  
"Yeah. She agrees with me, by the way, about getting a couch in the lair."  
"Felicity, we don't need a couch. I don't think we're going to be doing much entertaining."  
"You say that, but remember the list of people who started visiting the Foundry grew quite large last year. Roy, Sara, Laurel, a lot of bad guys. Oh, and the League of Assassins."  
Somewhat reluctantly he let out a laugh. "We're not getting a couch."  
"Fine," she said, giving him a small smile. "Eat your toast, I have to get something from my bedroom."  
Oliver watched her walk towards the kitchen door with her coffee in her hand, her ponytail swinging as she walked. As soon as she was gone, he leaned over and rifled through the papers she had been carrying. Finding the envelope she had tried to hide, he pulled it out to look at it.  
The return address was from S.T.A.R Labs in Central City. He frowned and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside it. Reading it quickly, he felt his heartbeat double in pace.  
Felicity was being offered a job.


	5. Chapter 5

-5-

Felicity walked into her bedroom, kicking off her shoes and slipping on her bunny slippers. She looked through her wardrobe and put on a bright pink cardigan, wincing a little at a small sharp pain in her shoulder. Getting attacked by Oliver _hurt. _She felt a fleeting sympathy for all the bad guys he beat up. Not that she blamed Oliver for attacking her – she _had_ been on the verge of spraying him in the face with an entire canister of mace. What in the world had gotten into her, thinking that he was someone dangerous? She really had to get a grip if she was going to continue in the crime-fighting business.  
At the thought, she remembered the letter that she had received that morning from S.T.A.R Labs. They wanted her in Central City to set up a new IT infrastructure, offering a ridiculous salary and a chance to utilise her skills (a slight dig at her current job as PA to Oliver Queen, no doubt). She suspected that Barry had something to do with the job offer, though there had been no mention of him in the letter.  
The letter – oh God, she had left it on the kitchen bench. No doubt Oliver had already read it. She was terrible at hiding things from him, and she knew that he had noticed when she had tried to hide the letter. Great, just what she needed – to get into an argument with Oliver. The last time she had gone to Central City for days at a time, he hadn't taken it very well.  
Standing in front of her mirror, she tried to steady her nerves before she went out to the kitchen again. She thought she had long ago gotten over how nervous she got around Oliver – but if she was being fair to herself, this was the first time he had ever been in her house. This was definitely a step over the professional boundary line. Not that things were strictly professional between them; they were more…  
Felicity sighed. Complicated. That's what they were. And it wasn't even her fault for once! She knew that what she felt for Oliver was her worst kept secret, and it would have been fine with her if the whole thing was one-sided. She had had crushes before on unattainable guys: Chris from high school with the James Dean air, Lawrence from MIT who sat two rows in front of her in lectures. She had known ever since she met him that Oliver Queen was going to be one of those unattainable guys.  
But then he had gone and ruined it, burst her little fantasy bubble and made her feelings _real._ He had said that he loved her, and although it had all been a ruse to get her close enough to Slade, when she had tried to confront him about it later and get him to take it all back, he had said nothing. Nothing! No "yeah, sorry about lying to you", no "you know I wasn't serious, right?" He had only smiled at her in that enigmatic way that he seemed to reserve only for her – she suspected just to drive her crazy.  
She made her way back out to the kitchen, and she immediately saw that she had been right: Oliver had found the letter. He watched her silently as she entered, but she chose to delay the inevitable conversation for a little while, swallowing nervously and making her way over to the kitchen sink to wash out her mug. She took her sweet time rinsing and washing and rinsing again, practically feeling Oliver's eyes boring two tiny holes into the back of her head.  
When she finally turned off the tap, he spoke.  
"So are you going to move to Central City?"  
She pursed her lips and turned around slowly, wondering if she could pretend to be mad at him for snooping through her stuff in an attempt to change the subject. But she knew it wouldn't work, and besides, it wasn't like she was one to preach about snooping. She had done more than her fair share of online trawling through Oliver's past.  
"Do you want me to be honest?" she asked him.  
His dark expression softened a little. "Of course," he said.  
She slowly walked over to stand on the opposite side of the breakfast bar, nervously wringing her hands. "I'm actually thinking about it."  
Oliver let out a big sigh and looked down at the letter again. "Is this about what happened with Slade?"  
She flinched. "Slade?"  
"You're not dealing well with what happened. I…I feel terrible for setting him up to kidnap you."  
Felicity looked at him almost disbelievingly. Of course she was still freaked out about the whole being-kidnapped-by-Slade-samurai-sword-to-neck thing – she only had to look back at the earlier mace incident and her recurring nightmares each night to know that she was not dealing with the trauma very well. But it wasn't why she was thinking about moving to Central City.  
Did Oliver really have no clue?  
"That's not the reason why I'm thinking about it," she said.  
"Is it Barry?"  
"No."  
"Then what's the reason?"  
YOU, she wanted to shout, but she kept her mouth firmly shut. Just because Oliver had taken a tiptoe step over the professional boundary line, it didn't mean she could go ahead and take a giant leap over it. What was she going to tell him? _The real reason why I'm thinking about moving away is because I spend every day and every night looking at your face and feeling heartbroken_? Definitely crossing the professional boundary line. Flying over it. Firing herself from a cannon over it.  
She looked around the room, struggling for something to say and her eyes fell on the picture of her with her mother. That had been taken on her last day in Vegas, just before she had headed off to MIT. Another reason why she was thinking about moving away came to her – less dramatic than her feelings for Oliver, but no less real.  
"Before you got stranded on the island, did you ever think about how your life was going to turn out?" she asked him.  
He stared at her, saying nothing, offering nothing, just studying her with his penetrating blue eyes.  
"When I first came to Starling City, I had dreams and plans, you know? I was going to travel, start up my own business, meet the man of my dreams." She gave him a small smile. "That's kind of hard to do with our line of work. And I get it, I get that there are some things that are worth giving up your plans and dreams for, but sometimes I…wonder." She swallowed heavily. "Do you think about it? I mean, do you ever wonder about life without the Arrow?"  
Oliver lowered his eyes. His answer surprised her.  
"A lot more recently," he said quietly. He looked up at her again and gave her a small smile. "You're wearing pink."  
"I…what?"  
"You haven't been wearing much colour lately."  
"Oh," she said, self-consciously pulling at the pink cardigan she had just put on. "You notice what I'm wearing?" She closed her eyes and scrunched her face – she really needed to work on her brain-to-mouth filter.  
"I notice when you're…not yourself," Oliver said.  
She blushed but couldn't help smiling. "That's really nice."  
Oliver stood up and walked around the breakfast bar to stand in front of her. He put his hand on her shoulder and looked her straight in the eyes. Felicity stared right back at him, pulled in by his magnetic gaze. This was one of the extraordinary things about her relationship with Oliver: the world could be going to pieces all around them, but she could make it all stand still just by looking into his eyes.  
"Please don't leave without telling me," he said. He paused, then gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Without telling me the real reason why you're leaving."  
"I…I don't think you want to hear my reason," she said quietly.  
His expression changed into a look that was both hopeful and sad. "You might be surprised." He let go of her shoulder and looked at his watch. "You should probably get some rest before we head out to the Sanctuary."  
She pulled a face. "I am not a big fan of sleeping lately."  
"Sleep at the Sanctuary then," he said. "You'll feel safer there, at least until your nightmares fade."  
She shook her head. "I can't go back to sleeping there."  
He gave her a grim look. "Felicity…" he said warningly.  
"We've had this conversation, Oliver," she said. "I'm not going to sleep at the Sanctuary anymore."  
"You need your sleep," he said. He let out a sigh of frustration. "Fine, we'll do it your way. Go to bed, get some rest. I'll wake you in an hour and we can head over together to meet up with Diggle later."  
"You'll wake me in an hour…wait, you're going to stay _here_?" Felicity spluttered. Somehow she felt she was losing control of the situation very quickly. Typical! It was just like Oliver to start bossing her around and changing things up – this was her house, dammit! She had to deal with his proximity at the Sanctuary, and now she had to deal with it in her home too?  
"Felicity, you attempted to mace me not too long ago. I think it's best if I watch over you for a bit."  
"Oliver, I'm ok, really, you don't have to do that for me."  
"I'm not doing it for you," he said in a low voice. "I'm doing it for me."

Diggle reached for his phone and dialled Oliver's number. Usually he didn't worry too much when Oliver was late, but the fact that Felicity wasn't at the Sanctuary yet either was worrying him a little.  
Oliver picked up on the third ring.  
"Diggle," he said, his voice hushed. Diggle frowned. Was Oliver on a stakeout? Why was he talking so quietly?  
"Hey man, where are you?" he asked. "We were supposed to meet up half an hour ago."  
"I'm…" he heard Oliver clear his throat and Diggle got the distinct feeling that he was uncomfortable with the question. What he said next told him why.  
"I'm with Felicity," Oliver said.  
Diggle paused for a beat, then asked, "Is she ok?" No good jumping to any conclusions.  
"Yeah she is. She's been asleep for over an hour now and I don't really want to wake her up."  
"Asleep?"  
"It's a long story," Oliver said. "Look, I'll wake her up and we'll be there within an hour, ok?"  
Diggle glanced over at Felicity's computers, then at Oliver's suit in its case, and made a quick decision.  
"Look Oliver, you know it's been quiet in the city lately," he said. "Don't worry about coming in. I'll hold the fort."  
"Dig, I don't think…"  
"You take care of Felicity," he said. "The city can take care of itself for one night." He braced himself for an argument, but Oliver surprised him.  
"Fine," he said. "But call me if anything comes up."  
"Sure boss," he said, a smile on his face. He hung up and leaned back in his chair, wondering what to make of the situation. So Oliver was at Felicity's house, or Felicity was at Oliver's house; either way, this was definitely an interesting step – in the right direction, in his opinion. Though Oliver tried to hide it, Diggle knew that what happened with Slade and Felicity a couple of months ago bothered him a lot more than he let on. He could see it in the way Oliver watched Felicity more closely, as if he was afraid of letting her out of his sight. He smiled wryly to himself. Oliver could try all he could to ignore it, make excuses about it being too dangerous or selfish, but he knew it was only a matter of time. The three of them all walked a fine line between life and death every night – Oliver would soon realise that death was easier to keep at bay with something to fight for, with something to come home to.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks to everyone who has liked my story so far! We're about halfway through, so I hope you stay with me to the end. Enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

-6-

"Oliver?"  
At the sound of Felicity's voice, Oliver turned his head. She stood in the doorway to the living room, dressed in a t-shirt and yellow pyjama bottoms, her blonde hair illuminated by the moonlight coming through the open windows.  
"Felicity. Are you ok?" he asked her softly.  
"It's one in the morning. You were supposed to wake me up." She came to sit opposite him on the window seat, rubbing her bare arms against the cold. He shifted and pulled out the blanket he had been leaning on, handing it over to her. She smiled gratefully at him and draped it over herself.  
"So we're not going to the Sanctuary tonight?" she asked.  
"Diggle said he'd call if he needed us," he said.  
She nodded her head then looked out the window, her face thoughtful. Oliver couldn't help but gaze at her face, liking the way the moonlight made her skin glow. More often than not, he was with Felicity when they were busy talking about crime, monitoring crime, fighting crime or being blown up by crime. Spending time with her when everything was calm and quiet was rare – and, he was coming to realise, precious.  
"Why have you got the window open?" she asked, leaning her elbow on the windowsill.  
He shrugged a little ruefully. "I spent so long out in the open, sometimes I feel claustrophobic."  
She gave him a sympathetic smile, then looked out towards the dark empty street. A slight breeze blew through her hair, sweeping a few strands across her cheek.  
"The city's so quiet from a distance," she said. "Sometimes I can't believe that you spend most nights fighting out there." She glanced at him. "Do you think it will ever be quiet? I mean, quiet for real?"  
He sighed and turned his gaze out the window, away from her watchful face. "I hope so."  
"Me too," she said. "I hope so. For you."  
He avoided looking at her, knowing that she would see more than he wanted her to see if he returned her gaze. Felicity was always so observant, it scared him a little sometimes; sometimes he thought that one day she would see too much of who he really was, and he would lose her.  
"Did you wake up because you had a nightmare?" he asked.  
"Yeah," she said. "But they're better. I mean, they're not as bad anymore. I can almost remember what it was like being able to sleep a whole night through."  
"I've completely forgotten what that's like," he said. "It must be nice."  
He heard her sigh as she shifted her position, pulling her knees up to her chest, keeping her gaze up at the sky.  
"One time when I was a kid and I was having trouble sleeping, my mom drove me all the way out into the desert in the middle of the night just so we could see the stars," she said. "Since then I dreamed that I would buy a house somewhere out in the countryside where there are no lights and there's no noise."  
That made Oliver smile. "That's a good dream. You should keep it."  
"Maybe one day, huh?" she said quietly.  
They sat in silence for a while, staring out into the night, feeling the cool breeze on their faces. Oliver thought about Felicity's words, about what she had just told him now and earlier in the evening – about having dreams and making plans for the future. Sometimes the things she said really made him think and question whatever he was doing. For some reason he couldn't figure out, he always found himself explaining things to her about how he felt and why he did certain things. With most people he was able to keep stony-faced and unapologetic; but there was something about the way Felicity looked at him sometimes that made him talk to her like he talked to no one else.  
"I don't like thinking about 'one day's," he said. "Doing what I do…it's difficult for me to think about the future."  
She turned to look at him. "It makes me sad when you say that."  
"Why?"  
"Because it makes it sound like being the Arrow is all you can be."  
"It is."  
"I don't believe that," she said.  
He shook his head. "As long as I keep being the Arrow, I can't be anything else."  
"Why not?"  
He took a deep breath, reining in his self-control. That was always the way with Felicity – always one more question.  
"Don't you want other things besides taking down bad guys and saving the city?" she asked. "Don't you want…I don't know, to get a dog? Go on a world cruise? Fall in love?"  
He gave her a grim look. "Before the island, I thought I would grow up one day, get married, have a family and carry on with the family business. But now I'm the Arrow, and that changes everything." He looked at her, willing her to understand. "If I found someone I really cared about, I don't think it would be fair of me to give them this life that I've chosen."  
She looked back at him, her eyes sad. "You know Oliver, every night I watch you get into your suit, walk out the door and I wonder if that's the last time I'll ever see you again. But you know why it makes me sad every time? Because if you died, it'll be not remembering what it was like to be happy." She gave him a sad smile. "I think if you found someone to share your life with, it could only be a good thing."  
As Felicity's words sunk into Oliver's mind, he found his hand reaching for hers. When his fingertips softly grazed her knuckles, her hand opened up without hesitation and held his. He looked down at their entwined fingers resting on the windowsill, a mixture of feelings heavy in his chest. Felicity had a way of saying things that made him feel simultaneously better and worse. As the Arrow, often she was the only thing that kept him fighting the good fight, kept him strong and believing in himself. But as Oliver Queen, often she was the only thing in his life that made it hard to keep fighting – because all he wanted to do was let it all go and find peace…in her.  
As if she read his thoughts, she squeezed his hand and spoke. "Has it ever occurred to you that you can be both the Arrow and Oliver? With the right person, you can be both."  
He shook his head a little wryly. "Always optimistic, aren't you?"  
"One of us has to be," she said.  
He gave her hand a squeeze. "Felicity, do me a favour."  
"Of course."  
He opened his mouth to say what he wanted to say: _Don't ever give up on me. Don't ever leave me. _But the habit of keeping her at arm's length, to keep her free from his darkness, to leave her with the choice to live her own life, stopped him. He gave her a smile he didn't mean.  
"Go to sleep," he said.  
She looked at him long and hard, her eyes searching his face, before she seemed to relent and nodded slowly.  
"Ok," she said. But she didn't move away – she just stayed there sitting next to him, holding his hand.

The next morning Felicity woke up to the feeling of the sun warm on her face. She opened her eyes and found that she had fallen asleep sitting up on the window seat opposite Oliver, her hand still clasped within his. She didn't move, but instead took the chance to study his face. Although he was sleeping, the grimness in his face that was always there while he was awake hadn't disappeared. Felicity's heart went out to him – even when he was resting, he still looked haunted.  
His face twitched suddenly as his breathing quickened, his grip on her hand tightening almost painfully. She cringed, wondering if he was having a nightmare.  
"Oliver," she said gently.  
In an instant, he opened his eyes.  
"Felicity," he said, his voice coming out in one rush of relief. "I was dreaming…" he swallowed heavily and rubbed his face with his free hand as if he was trying to banish the dream from his mind. His other hand still gripped her hand tightly. "Slade took you and I didn't save you," he said in a small voice.  
"It was just a dream," she said in what she hoped was a reassuring tone. She was feeling a little scared – Oliver always looked so determinedly composed. She was totally unused to seeing such stark fear in his eyes.  
"I'm sorry that I let him kidnap you," he said, his eyes pleading as he looked at her.  
"We did what we had to do," she told him.  
"But I put you in danger and I told Diggle that I would protect you. So many things could have gone wrong that night."  
"But they didn't," she said. "We won. We saved the day." For some reason her heartbeat was quickening in pace. There was something about the way Oliver was looking at her that was making her quite nervous; there was an intensity there in his blue eyes as he searched her face.  
"This is why I can't be with someone I could truly care about," he said. "What Slade did to me, baiting me with someone I loved…" he paused as he looked down at their joined hands. "I was only able to give you up to him because I convinced myself that we were partners, that you were someone I could work with, not someone I had to protect at the cost of everything else."  
Felicity swallowed heavily, her heart in her throat. What was Oliver trying to tell her?  
"If we're only partners, then I know you and I will always put this city first," he said. "But if I love you, then everything else…it wouldn't matter. _You_ would always come first." He looked at her, his face bleak. "Do you understand?"  
Felicity stopped breathing, for once at a loss for words. She couldn't have answered Oliver even if she knew what she wanted to say. A long, heavy hesitation passed between them; then without a sound, Oliver pulled her hand and tugged her towards him, at the same time as he sat up to meet her.  
Then all of a sudden, before she could make any sense of what was happening, Oliver leaned down and kissed her.  
As soon as his lips touched hers, Felicity felt as if her world had tipped just slightly off its axis – that strange mixture of fear and exhilaration hitting her all at once, like the moment at the top of a rollercoaster ride before it launched itself back to the ground. Before this moment she would have said that she liked kissing well enough; but 'liking' didn't quite describe how wonderful it felt to be kissed by Oliver. She had known this man for two years and she knew that most people only ever saw what he wanted them to see: someone tough, scary, determined and unflinching. But as his lips explored her own, and his hand caressed her neck, she saw, _really _saw, what she glimpsed in him every day: his gentleness, his fragility, his humanity.  
After a moment that could have been a second or an entire year, he pulled away from her and she opened her eyes, looking dazedly at his face. There was a heartbreakingly sad expression in his blue eyes as he looked at her.  
"Felicity," he whispered and stroked her cheek with his hand. Then without another word, he stood up and walked away from her, leaving her sitting there by the window, alone.


	7. Chapter 7

-7-

Laurel could tell that there was something wrong with Oliver – she was pretty sure that he hadn't been listening to anything she had been saying ever since she had arrived in his office. She sighed and put down the file in her hand, leaning back in her chair.  
"All right, out with it, Ollie," she said, crossing her arms. "Tell me what's wrong."  
Oliver blinked a couple of times and sat up straighter in his chair. "Sorry?" he said.  
"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you, or do I have to ring Felicity and ask her?"  
An almost imperceptible grimace passed across his face as she mentioned Felicity's name. Her eyebrows rose.  
"Has this got something to do with Felicity?" she asked.  
He gave her a long look, his expression schooled back to its usual stoniness. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
She smirked at him. "Liar."  
He gave her another stony look, then seemed to relent as he let out a big sigh.  
"We had a fight. I think."  
"Why? Did you tell her that you love her, and then change your mind?"  
He glared at her but interestingly enough he didn't deny it. She shrugged off the irritated stare he was giving her.  
"I'm just going with your history, Ollie," she said.  
"It's complicated."  
"Of course it is. It's always complicated with you." She sighed. "Is she mad at you?"  
"I don't know. Probably."  
"Are you mad at her?"  
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Never."  
Laurel felt a little taken aback seeing that subtle smile flickering across Oliver's face. She had never seen such tenderness on his face before. It had only been a second - a tiny crack in the stern facade that he wore around him like armour; but it was all she needed to convince her of the depth of his feelings for Felicity.  
"Look, Ollie, don't make the mistake of treating Felicity like you've treated everyone else," she told him. "She knows you, I would argue better than anyone else nowadays. And the fact of the matter is, she hasn't left you. She's the only person I know, including you and including me, who has never given up on you. So if that isn't someone you can spend the rest of your life with, then I don't know what to say to you."  
Laurel found it rather bemusing and enlightening that she was perfectly fine with the fact that Ollie clearly loved Felicity, and that on top of that, she was actually telling him off for not admitting it to her. Once upon a time she had thought that she would spend the rest of her life with him – but ever since she had found out that he was the Arrow, it was as if something inside her had finally clicked. When he had gotten back from the island, she had treated him like the Ollie she had once known, and in response to that, he had acted like the Ollie he once was. But now that they were being honest with each other, now that she knew the truth about his mask as the Arrow and his mask as the playboy Oliver Queen, she could see glimpses of the new man he had become underneath – and she knew that it wasn't her who had brought it out in him. It was Felicity.  
She picked up the files from his desk and stood up, giving him a sympathetic smile. "I'll come back and talk to you about these later," she said.  
"We can talk about them now."  
"No, we can't," she said. She glanced through his glass walls and saw Felicity storming towards his office. "I think you're about to have some company."  
Oliver shifted his gaze from her to Felicity's fast approaching figure. A flicker of unease passed over his face, making her smile again.  
"I'll give you some advice a good friend once told me," she said. "Just be honest…Oliver."

Felicity marched her way towards Oliver's office, her ponytail swinging, her heels clicking and her temper fuming.  
"Hi Laurel," she said as she passed her in the corridor.  
"Morning Felicity," Laurel said, giving her a knowing smile.  
When Felicity got to Oliver's office, she found him sitting at his desk, evidently waiting for her. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored grey suit, well-groomed and handsome, the epitome of self-control and sophistication.  
She wanted to kill him.  
"You," she seethed, coming to a stop in front of his desk and pointing an accusing finger at him, "are not a nice person."  
"Felicity," he started to say in that stoic manner of his, but she stopped him with a glare and whiplash wave of her hand.  
"Don't," she said. "Don't even start."  
She watched him stand up slowly, calm and composedly, and she practically had to stop herself from leaping over the desk and strangling him.  
"I know that you're mad about what happened this morning– " he started to say. But she interrupted him.  
"You think I'm mad about you kissing me and then walking away?" she said. "Please! I could have written the entire script of how _that_ was going to work out. You kiss me, you pull away, we pretend it never happened and we all live happily ever after." She glared at him and pulled out her phone, shoving it towards his face from across the desk.  
"But this! Oliver! How could you do this to me? I get a phone call from S.T.A.R Labs telling me how my boss, Mr Queen, rang them this morning with a glowing recommendation about me and how he told them that he's working really hard to convince me that this opportunity to move to Central City shouldn't be missed." She stared at him, so full of hurt and anger that there were tears in her eyes. "Why do you want to send me away?"  
"It isn't like that," he said, his voice flat.  
She took a deep breath and counted backwards in her head, trying and failing to find some patience.  
"You know what, Oliver? It is _exactly_ like that. I was stupid to think that I was different, that you would never disrespect me or cast me aside like you do every other woman in your life. But I was so wrong."  
He stepped out from behind his desk then to stand in front of her, his hands clenched by his sides.  
"Please don't say that," he said.  
"What am I supposed to say?"  
"Felicity," he said, his face sombre, his shoulders drooping. "I tried to make you understand."  
"Oliver," she said, looking up at him with an expression that was both frustrated and pleading. "I _do_ understand. I understand you more than anyone."  
"Then please..." he said, his voice trailing off.  
Looking at his face, seeing how sad and regretful he looked, made all the fury and hurt Felicity was feeling disappear like smoke. For so many years and still even now, Oliver spent most of his waking hours expecting the worst, waiting for the next blow, looking for the next fight. Always ready for it. Never surprised when it came.  
She didn't want to be another person he had to fight.  
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked quietly.  
He let out a deep sigh. "It's not what I want, Felicity. It's what I need. What we both need." He took a step forward and reached out a hand, but she crossed her arms and stepped back away from him. He dropped his hand.  
"The Arrow, it's a part of who I am, it's a part of my life now," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "If I ask you to be a part of that life…I just don't want you to regret putting your own life on hold for me."  
"Why do you think I'd be putting my life on hold?" she asked. "And even if I were putting it on hold, why would you think I would regret it? Even for a second?"  
"You would one day."  
Felicity dropped her gaze and shook her head. Then she took a steadying breath, took a step forward and kissed Oliver on the lips. Just once. Just to remember.  
"Oliver," she said, looking up at him. "I have never, ever given up on you. One day I hope you find a way to have some faith in me too."


	8. Chapter 8

-8-

_3 months later_

"Again."  
Diggle wiped the sweat off his brow and raised an eyebrow at Oliver.  
"That's three times I've beaten you, Oliver," he said, leaning on his staff. "Your head's not in the game tonight," _Like it hasn't been for ages_, he added silently in his head.  
Oliver glared at him. "I'm fine," he growled, moving off the exercise mat to put his staff away. Diggle watched him go, shaking his head. He leaned over and picked up his drink bottle, taking a long drink, waiting patiently. The two of them had been sparring for about ten minutes now. It usually took Oliver ten minutes and a few knocks to the body to work up the courage to ask the question. Sure enough…  
"How was your visit to Central City?" Oliver asked, his back to Diggle.  
"It was good," Diggle replied, grabbing a shirt and putting it on.  
"And how was Felicity?" Oliver asked, his voice even.  
Diggle turned his head to look at Oliver, but he could only see the back of his head and his shoulders tight with the tension of asking the question.  
"She's fine," he said.  
"That's good."  
Diggle watched as Oliver silently went over to his bow and arrows and sat down, his face a mask. With a sigh, Diggle walked over to the computers, which he still thought of as Felicity's computers, and gave them a quick glance. Before Felicity had left, she had streamlined the system so that he could understand it. Just.  
"So," he said, leaning on the table and looking towards Oliver. "When are you going to ask her to come back?"  
He saw Oliver tense as soon as he asked the question. "She left, Dig," he said.  
"Because you told her to."  
"She left because she wanted to."  
Diggle crossed his arms, looked up at the ceiling and tried to find some patience. He was not going to get anywhere with Oliver if he lost his temper.  
"Oliver, you and I both know that Felicity would never leave us," he said. "She would have only left because of some misguided notion that it was what was best for you."  
Oliver didn't reply, merely picked up an arrow and began to inspect it closely. Since he wasn't arguing back, Diggle took that as a good sign to keep talking.  
"Look, I don't know what happened with the two of you, that's fine, that's your business. But you need to fix this. We need her on the team. No one else can do what she did."  
"We can find another tech expert."  
"You know that isn't what I mean."  
The silence hung between them, thick with words that both of them left unsaid – about Felicity being the heart of the team, about how she was irreplaceable not because she was such a talented hacker, but because she made what they did not so dark and horrible to deal with.  
"What did she always used to say?" Oliver said, his voice quiet. "_My life, my choice_. She left Starling City because she chose to, not because I pushed her away. It's not like she's never disagreed with me before."  
Diggle gave him a thoughtful look. "Why _did_ you push her away? It's not like…well, you've had feelings for her for a long time, Oliver, but that's never gotten in the way before." He smirked at Oliver's sharp look. "I may be older than you, but I'm not blind."  
Oliver sighed. "I've always been able to put the team and our mission above my feelings and her feelings before."  
"What changed?"  
Oliver shrugged, his expression growing dark. From experience, Diggle knew that was pretty much everything he was going to get from Oliver tonight. Against his better judgement though, he decided to go with one last parting shot.  
"Oliver, I know that you think that being the Arrow means you can't be with someone you could care about. But you're wrong. Having someone to care about in your life won't make you weaker. It'll make you stronger."  
Oliver's jaw clenched as he let out a deep breath, but still, he said nothing. Diggle felt truly sorry for his young friend. He wondered if he would ever let himself be happy.  
"You going out on patrol again tonight?" he asked.  
"Yup," Oliver said tersely, pushing his chair back, standing up and walking over to his suit.  
Diggle watched him open up the glass case, the silence in the Sanctuary heavy. In the past, whenever Oliver suited up, Felicity would always call out to him 'Be careful' before he left the building, and Diggle knew that Oliver had appreciated it. One time he had caught him smiling from underneath his hood.  
Now, Oliver suited up and left the building in a stoic, business-like manner, reminding Diggle of the first few months he had signed up to be Oliver's partner. The pre-Felicity days.  
Diggle watched his retreating back, missing Felicity more and more.

Felicity tapped away at her computer, a pen hanging from the corner of her mouth. The project she had been working on for S.T.A.R Labs was almost finished, but she was trying to finish it as slowly as she could. When it was done, she knew she would have to start thinking about what she would do next. Would she accept another project and stay in Central City, or would she go back to Starling City?  
She looked up at the clock and sighed. Well, ten minutes. Not a bad record. She had gone ten minutes without thinking about Oliver.  
Her mind flicked back to that day three months ago when she had decided to leave Team Arrow. It hadn't been easy for her – in fact, she almost hadn't gone through with it. But she knew that although a large part of her loved doing what she did with Oliver and Diggle, a small part of her also wanted to be happy.  
She knew that, unlike her, Oliver believed that he couldn't be both the Arrow and Oliver. And since she knew how much Oliver needed to be the Arrow, _needed_ to be a hero, she knew she could never ask him to choose between her and his mission. So she had made the decision for him. It was time to move on with her life, time to simplify and focus on what it was she really wanted.  
The first step had been to leave Starling City. The second step was proving even more difficult: she had to stop wanting to be with Oliver. And judging by the fact that her record for how long she went without thinking about him was a mere ten minutes, she thought that her road to a new life was going to be a lot harder than she had anticipated.  
It was a welcome distraction from her thoughts when she heard someone calling her name from down the hall. She looked up and smiled when she saw Barry walking through her door.  
"Hey–" she started to say, then stopped when she saw his face. Usually smiling, his face was sombre as he carried a tablet in with him and approached her with an air of dread.  
"What's happened?" she asked, her instincts going into overdrive.  
"You need to see this," he said, giving her the tablet. She quickly took it off him and saw that he was streaming a live news story. The running headline made her throat constrict: THE ARROW GUNNED DOWN IN DRUG RAID. Desperately she turned up the volume.  
"_Sources have confirmed that the vigilante known as The Arrow was involved in tonight's capture of one of Starling City's most prevalent and elusive drug kings operating under the moniker Morpheus. Witnesses at the scene have said that they saw The Arrow fighting various bodyguards and armed gunmen before being shot down in front of Morpheus' nightclub. Although a body has not been found, detectives on the scene have expressed concern at the amount of blood left behind by the vigilante."  
_"Felicity!" she heard Barry calling out to her, but she wasn't listening anymore. She was racing out the door, her blonde hair flying behind her, her fingers working at an impossible speed on her phone, booking a train ticket that would take her back to Starling City.


	9. Chapter 9

-9-

The rain fell on Oliver as he lay face down in the grass, soaking through his leather suit and cooling the roaring pain in his lower side. His bow and quiver lay a few feet away from him, forgotten. Nearby, the towering silhouette of the Queen mansion stood large and empty in the night. Occasionally the moonlight would break through the clouds, illuminating in front of Oliver the memorial stones dug into the grass, and he would read the names written on them as he drifted in and out of consciousness: Robert Queen; Moira Queen; Tommy Merlyn; Yao Fei; Shado. He had had them installed in the grounds of the mansion, right where he could see them from his bedroom window, to always remind him what he was fighting for and who he was honouring with his chosen path.  
He groaned as a dull throbbing pain ebbed out from his side and spread across his torso, shortening his breath. He wondered where Diggle was – he had told him to meet him at the mansion. At least he thought he had told him. He was having a hard time remembering anything at the moment.  
With great difficulty he rolled onto his back, welcoming the feeling of the rain falling onto his face like a cooling balm. He carefully reached down and felt his side where he had been shot, inhaling sharply as his probing fingers found his wound. Holding his hand up to his face, he saw that it was covered in blood.  
He let his hand fall back down to the grass, his strength leaving him. He looked around at the stone memorials again, and realised that if he didn't get some help soon, he was probably going to die. A faint buzzing was in his ear, and when he concentrated enough, he could hear Diggle talking to him through his earpiece, telling him to hold on, he was on his way and why in God's name had he gone all the way to the mansion instead of back to the Sanctuary? But then Oliver would lose the will to listen anymore and he would drift dazedly in and out of consciousness, feeling the rain on his face, looking at the stone memorials, wondering why it was that he had gone all the way there to that spot just to lie in the mud, bleeding, dying and alone.  
Through his rain-soaked eyes, he read the names on the stones again: Robert Queen; Moira Queen; Tommy Merlyn; Yao Fei; Shado. It was like a litany in his head, a litany that he had recited almost every day for the past seven years. He thought it was appropriate that if he was going to die, it would be here, next to the names of the people he had been fighting for, and now was dying for. He hoped that he had done them proud, and that they would grant him a peaceful death.  
Death…he had spent so long dodging it, it was almost an anti-climax the way it was finally coming to him. In all honesty, it wasn't such a bad thing. It was actually quite a relief knowing that tomorrow he wouldn't have to fight anymore.  
He closed his eyes.  
From somewhere deep inside him, an echo of a voice drifted through his head, a memory of a moment in a clock tower not so long ago: _You honour the dead by fighting. And you are not done fighting.  
_Oliver opened his eyes, gasping in pain as he returned once more to full consciousness. He looked around him desperately, but all he could see was falling rain and shadows. He could have sworn he had heard Felicity's voice calling out to him; but that was impossible. Felicity wasn't in Starling City anymore.  
With a groan he tried to sit up, but only managed to prop himself up onto his elbows before he collapsed again. He got a quick glance down at the gunshot wound in his side, pressing a hand to it to try and stop the bleeding. He was feeling dangerously woozy now, and he knew that he had lost a lot of blood. With a grunt, he pressed his hand down harder, his eyes drifting over to the memorial stones as he fought to stay conscious.  
Robert Queen; Moira Queen; Tommy Merlyn; Yao Fei; Shado. Try as he might, those names conjured up nothing good in his mind at that moment as he lay there, bleeding on the grass in front of his childhood home. His father reminded him of betrayal, his mother of deception; Tommy had thought him a murderer; Yao Fei had given him a taste of vengeance for the first time; and Shado, beautiful Shado, his everlasting guilt. These people had driven him to pursue a life that he had hoped would redeem his honour and would win him back some grace. But was that all that his life was now? A mission to make up for past wrongs?  
_Don't you have any happy stories?  
_He looked around again, hearing Felicity's voice. It was so loud in his head he could almost convince himself that she was just a few feet away, about to run towards him with a look of concern and disapproval on her face. She was never very happy whenever he got hurt.  
He groaned, the pain in his side worsening, although he increased the pressure that he was applying to his wound in an attempt to stay conscious. He found his mind replaying the five years he had been away, and he wondered if this was what people meant when they said that life flashed before a person's eyes before he or she died. As the myriad of emotions and faces and moments paraded through his head, Oliver found that Felicity was mostly right: those years didn't have a lot of happy stories in them.  
But to his surprise, when the memories of the past two years flashed before his eyes, he _could_ see a few moments when he had been happy.  
A triumphant shadow of a smile flickered across his face. For once, Felicity had been wrong. She had told him that she felt sad every time she watched him leave as the Arrow each night because she thought that if he died, it would be not remembering what it was like to be happy.  
But he _did_ remember what it was like to be happy. The memories came to him in a steady flow, as vivid as if they had happened only a minute ago, as if somewhere deep inside him, he had been keeping them secret, keeping them safe for the precious rare moments that they were.  
The first time he had walked into Felicity's office and she had made him smile with her babbling.  
The time when they had gotten into that argument about her becoming his Girl Wednesday.  
The time when she had called him a hero after putting his mask on him for the first time.  
And that moment, on Lian Yu, the day after they had finally defeated Slade, when she had tried to get him to take back his 'I-love-you'.  
As he replayed the memories in his mind, an overwhelming feeling of regret came over him, so overpowering that it eclipsed the pain in his side that was slowly killing him. He might never get a chance to tell Felicity that he had meant it, that his feelings for her were real, and that if he could do his whole life over again, he would choose any version of it that would have her still in his life. She would never know that his last thoughts were of her and that he wished that he had taken that leap of faith to be a part of her life, just as she had taken the leap to be a part of his. She would never know that now, when it was probably too late, he would give up everything if it only meant that he could be with her.  
She would never know that he actually had happy stories, and it was because of her.  
If Diggle didn't find him soon…he gritted his teeth and shook his head. No, Diggle would find him, and until then, he would stay alive. He had to see Felicity, tell her that he chose a life with her…  
The rain stopped falling for a moment, leaving Oliver to lie there in a long, hushed silence. He stared at the stone memorials, his breathing loud in his own ears, thinking about the life that he had led so far – the life that he was now willing to give up.  
_I'm sorry,_ he finally thought, his mind slowly drifting back into the blackness. _Dad, Mom, Tommy, Yao Fei, Shado. I know I promised that I would keep fighting to honour you, but I didn't see this coming.  
_His hand pressed down on his gunshot wound before it slackened and fell down by his side.  
_I didn't count on being happy._


	10. Chapter 10

-10-

It had been seven hours since she had walked out of S.T.A.R Labs, and Felicity was starting to think that someone out there didn't like her very much. How in the world did it take this long to wait for a train that would take her back to Starling City? Surely trains should always be running there – especially for people like her, who needed them for emergencies! And now, _now _that she was _finally _on a train, she was waiting at a main hub for another train to pass in the opposite direction? Didn't these people know how much of a hurry she was in?  
She rubbed her eyes wearily, realising that she had been awake for almost twenty-three hours. The bustle of the station outside was thankfully keeping her awake, as was the impatient tapping of her foot as she waited for the train to get moving again. Her phone sat uselessly on her lap, dead. The last phone call she had received was from Diggle telling her that he was on his way to help Oliver. She had no idea if Oliver was ok or not. She had no idea if Diggle had gotten to him on time.  
She glared down at her phone, willing it to come back to life. What kind of an IT girl was she, if she couldn't even get her phone to work?  
Frustrated, she went back to staring out of the window, bringing her hand jerkily to her face. Her fingernails were already bitten down to the skin, ruining the manicure she had treated herself to just the weekend before. She wondered again if she should have made another choice, found another way to get to Starling City, but she knew that it was pointless to think anything now. Since she had arrived at Central City station in the middle of the night to find it closed, she had gone through a million other possibilities she could take that would get her back to Starling City – hire a car, hijack a fire engine, commandeer a helicopter – but none of those options were as quick or less difficult than waiting for the hours to pass until the station resumed its train services.  
It had been the longest hours of her life.  
And now, as she made her way back to Starling City, her heart was filled with dread at what she might find there. What if Diggle hadn't gotten to Oliver on time? What if he was already…  
She shook her head and inwardly scolded herself. There was no good in thinking the worse. They had gone through bad situations before – no reason for things to be different this time round.  
Except things _were_ different. Because she wasn't there. She wasn't there helping Diggle find Oliver, she wasn't there making sure Oliver was ok, she wasn't there telling him off for not being careful. And that one reason alone made her realise how wrong she had been for the past three months. She couldn't move on with her life – because her life was back in Starling City, with Oliver.  
She was an idiot. It didn't matter if she never ended up with him. It was enough for her that she was a part of his life, that she was there to support him and make him smile once in a while. She had thought that she needed both – that she had needed to be his one true love and his partner-in-crime – and when he had told her he couldn't give it to her, she had run away from him, thinking that there was nothing worse than being with him and not _being _with him.  
But she had been wrong, so so wrong. There _was_ something worse. There was Oliver being dead. There was Oliver being dead, and her wasting three months when she could have been with him. Not _with _with him, but just with him.  
She let out a sigh of relief when she heard the other train they had been waiting to pass by approach the platform. She looked at her watch, seeing that she had been waiting there in the train, _not moving, _for ten minutes. Her stomach clutched and she looked at her dead phone again rather helplessly.  
_Please, _please_ don't let me be too late.  
_The approaching train cruised to a halt on the opposite side of the platform. Her eyes flickered absentmindedly along the windows as the train rolled in so slowly that she thought it might possibly be going backwards. She bit back a scream of frustration, stopping herself from standing up and finding someone to yell at to get the train moving again. As her gaze moved along the windows of the opposite train, she suddenly stopped breathing.  
No, it couldn't be. That couldn't be…  
In an instant, she was up out of her seat and sprinting to the doors of the train. Pushing the button frantically, the doors opened with a hiss and she practically fell out onto the platform. Then she was running, sprinting, across to the other train.  
"Oliver!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, waving her hands at the window of the opposite train through which she could see Oliver's form slumped on a seat. His head turned at the sound of her voice and when his eyes met hers, he was suddenly up and running to the train door just like she had only seconds before. Behind him, Diggle followed.  
She hurried to meet him as he stepped off the train, but froze in her tracks when she saw the state of him. He was pale, so pale, and pain had etched lines at the corners of his eyes. She felt tears spring up in her eyes and she looked up at Diggle with a questioning look. Thankfully Diggle gave her a small, reassuring smile, then moved away from them, leaving them alone.  
"I–" Felicity started to say, then had to stop to clear the lump in her throat. "I was on my way back to see you." She wrung her hands nervously, her eyes anxiously searching his body for injuries. "I heard on the news that you had been shot. I got on the first train I could."  
Her gaze finally went back to his face, after failing to find any outward sign of injury. She found him studying her closely, his clear blue eyes steady.  
"I was on my way to Central City," he finally said, his voice soft.  
"Oh?" she said. Despite herself, she frowned. "Shouldn't you have gone to a hospital instead?"  
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Diggle fixed me up. Besides, it couldn't wait."  
"What couldn't wait?"  
"What I had to tell you."  
Felicity swallowed heavily as the way Oliver was looking at her turned more intense. He took a step towards her, then stopped, standing so close that she could feel his body heat emanating towards her. She barely noticed when the two trains on either side of them began to move away.  
"I wanted you to know that you don't have to be sad anymore," he said quietly, his eyes never leaving her face. "I almost died last night, but you were wrong. I wasn't going to die not remembering what it's like to be happy. I _did _remember. I remembered you." His hand unconsciously reached up to his side, making her wonder if that was where he had been shot. He took a deep breath, then continued to talk.  
"I hopped on the first train I could to see you, Felicity," he said. "I realised that you are the most important thing to me. Not being the Arrow. Not fighting for the dead. You."  
Felicity's eyes widened.  
"You're choosing _me_?" she breathed.  
In answer, he just smiled.

As they pulled into the station, Oliver could feel Diggle's eyes on him.  
"I'm fine," he said, sitting up straighter in the chair. Diggle raised a dubious eyebrow.  
"You don't look fine," he said. "I hope the morphine's working for you."  
Oliver grimaced at the dull, persistent ache in his side, then tried to put it out of his mind. When Diggle had found him late last night, unconscious and barely alive, he doubted Diggle would have expected them to be on the first train to Central City a few hours later. But morphine and a stubborn streak could work wonders.  
"Could you try ringing her again?" he asked Diggle as the train pulled to a stop.  
"I've tried," Diggle said, looking down at his phone. "It's going straight to voicemail."  
Oliver frowned, staring out of the window. It was unlike Felicity to be unreachable. He wondered if something was wrong – or whether the unthinkable had happened, and she had finally moved on with her life, without him.  
Felicity. He had lost her once already. There was no way he was going to lose her again.  
As if he had conjured her up with his thoughts, from the station platform a flash of blonde hair gleaming in the sun caught his eye. He didn't believe it at first – but then she called out his name.  
"Oliver!"  
Without a second's hesitation, he was up and running out of the train, the pain in his side forgotten. When he got to the platform, there she was, standing there to meet him.  
Felicity.  
She looked beautiful, standing there in front of him, her blue eyes glowing, her pale skin so soft in the morning light. She was saying something to him and he was saying something back to her, but all he was really thinking was how much he had missed her. He hadn't realised quite how much until that moment.  
"I realised that you are the most important thing to me," he told her. "Not being the Arrow. Not fighting for the dead. You."  
"You're choosing me?" she asked, her eyes wide with disbelief.  
He smiled at her, knowing that she would never believe that he would give up everything and anything for just one shot at happiness with her. That was fine with him – he would spend the rest of his life proving it to her.  
"What are you doing here anyway?" he asked, suddenly realising where they were.  
"I was on a train," she said. "I was going back to Starling City."  
"You were coming back?"  
She gave him a small smile. "Well, last night when I heard that you were shot, I realised that a life not being with you – and not _with _with you, but you know, just _with_ you – I know it's the same word but it means different things in my head." She grinned then, a self-deprecating grin that made him smile back at her. "I realised that if I had to choose a life trying to find happiness with someone else, or being happy living a life fighting crime with you, I choose you."  
It was his turn to look at her with disbelief. "Even if that means just being Girl Wednesday to the Arrow?"  
"It's Girl _Friday. _And yes, that would be more than enough for me, Oliver."  
Oliver felt something in his chest – years and years of anger, loss and loneliness – melt away until he felt the lightest he had felt in a long time. He couldn't believe it: here he was, racing his way to Central City to declare to Felicity that he chose a life with her as Oliver Queen; and she had been on her way to Starling City to tell him that she chose a life with him as his friend and as the Arrow's partner. He had let go of his life to be with her, and she had let go of her new life to be with him – and somehow, some way, they had literally met in the middle.  
He realised then that this was what she had meant. He could be both Oliver Queen and the Arrow. Just as long as he was with someone who understood him, every side of him; just as long as he was with someone who was willing to meet him halfway.  
It was the most perfect gift she would ever give him.  
"I love you, Felicity," he said, the words bursting out of him, no longer willing to be contained.  
She gave him a bright smile, her face lit with such happiness that he would always remember it looking back in later years; and then she was in his arms, faster than a flying arrow.

* * *

**The end. Thanks for reading, and for all your lovely comments and reviews! Bring on Arrow Season 3, Olicity forever!**


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